I read a book about Renaissance Italian how-to manuals which mentioned one of Fonte's other books, about a group of women arguing about the place of women in society in a Venetian garden full of misandrist sculptures, and when I was trying to find that one I discovered this instead.

The picture Spark paints of humanity in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is so ugly - and yet mostly in such small, petty ways - and it sort of sticks to your mind afterward, like an oil slick.